B♭ dominant 9th chord

Playing it

There’s no open-string way to play B♭9 on guitar with the root in the bass, so the standard shape is a barre across the 6th fret (686768).

On piano, B♭9 has two black keys (B♭ and A♭) and three white keys. In root position it spans more than an octave, so many pianists play the root with the left hand and the rest with the right.

On ukulele the usual B♭9 shape is 1213, using four fingers. It leaves out the root, which a bass player (or your ear) fills in.

Related chords

Move a single note and B♭9 becomes a different chord: drop the C for B♭7, drop the A♭ for B♭add9, raise A♭ to A for B♭maj9 and lower D to D♭ for B♭m9.